"
"My money!" cried she. "You treat me as if I were nothing but an
unfeeling usurer."
"Forgive me," said Wenceslas, "but you remind me of it so often.
--Well, it is you who have made me; do not crush me."
"You mean to be rid of me, I can see," said she, shaking her head.
"Who has endowed you with this strength of ingratitude--you who are a
man of papier-mache? Have you ceased to trust me--your good genius?
--me, when I have spent so many nights working for you--when I have
given you every franc I have saved in my lifetime--when for four years
I have shared my bread with you, the bread of a hard-worked woman, and
given you all I had, to my very courage."
"Mademoiselle--no more, no more!" he cried, kneeling before her with
uplifted hands. "Say not another word! In three days I will tell you,
you shall know all.--Let me, let me be happy," and he kissed her
hands. "I love--and I am loved."
"Well, well, my child, be happy," she said, lifting him up. And she
kissed his forehead and hair with the eagerness that a man condemned
to death must feel as he lives through the last morning.
"Ah! you are of all creatures the noblest and best! You are a match
for the woman I love," said the poor artist.
"I love you well enough to tremble for your future fate," said she
gloomily. "Judas hanged himself--the ungrateful always come to a bad
end! You are deserting me, and you will never again do any good work.
Consider whether, without being married--for I know I am an old maid,
and I do not want to smother the blossom of your youth, your poetry,
as you call it, in my arms, that are like vine-stocks--but whether,
without being married, we could not get on together? Listen; I have
the commercial spirit; I could save you a fortune in the course of ten
years' work, for Economy is my name!--while, with a young wife, who
would be sheer Expenditure, you would squander everything; you would
work only to indulge her.
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